How to keep your customers engaged, even for products they rarely use

Photo credit: Pixabay.

Alphabet Inc. CEO Larry Page has a quirky way of deciding which companies he likes: the “Toothbrush Test.” According to The New York Times, when Page looks at a potential company to acquire, he wants to know if the product is “something you will use once or twice a day,” like a toothbrush.

Page clearly understands habits. As I wrote in my book, frequently used products form sticky customer habits. But what if your product doesn’t pass Page’s Toothbrush Test?

Can buying and selling homes become a habit?

A few months ago, I was hired to present at a gathering of 700 real estate agents. The master of ceremonies made a gracious introduction, saying, “Now, we’ll hear from Nir Eyal, an expert on consumer habits. Nir is going to teach us how to make home buying and selling into a habit!”

The breath went out of me like I’d been punched in the solar plexus.

I trudged on stage and gripped the podium. “I’m sorry,” I said. “There must have been some misunderstanding.” I paused to catch my breath. “There is no way I am going to teach you how to make home buying and selling into a habit, because it has no chance of ever becoming a habit.”

I glanced over my shoulder trying to find the woman who introduced me, hoping she’d save me, but she was already slinking off the stage. I was stuck. I hadn’t prepared another talk, so I just delivered the planned presentation.

I explained that home buying and selling doesn’t occur nearly often enough to become a habit. Furthermore, the very definition of a habit — a behavior done with little or no conscious thought — is the antithesis of the kind of overthinking that real estate transactions inspire.

I expected crickets as I finished my talk. But I received a generous round of applause, and a small mob of real estate agents gathered around me as I got off stage. As the lights came up and the convention adjourned for a break, the agents peppered me with questions. They all had ideas to share.

“I know home buying and selling can’t be a habit,” one woman said. “That’s fine. But what if I make a habit of doing something else related to home buying and selling?” I was intrigued.

Soon, other agents chimed in and built upon each other’s ideas, coming up with all sorts of ways to keep potential customers engaged. Their ideas helped me realize that even infrequently used products and services can keep customers hooked.

How to keep customers engaged

There are at least two ways to build a habit around an infrequently used product: content and community.

However, let me be clear: Not every business needs to be habit-forming. There are lots of ways to bring customers back, and many companies succeed without relying on customers’ habits. They buy advertising, spend money on search engine optimization, or open a storefront to capture customers’ attention as they walk by. But traditional methods of keeping customers engaged force businesses to rent space on someone else’s website, search engine, or street corner.

By contrast, owning a customer’s habit is an asset that pays you.

Monetization as a result of engagement

The gist